In vitro fertilization (IVF) and electrophysiology are examples of biomedical areas with increasing interest, where objects are very small and visible only under a compound microscope with objective lenses and special equipment is needed for conducting experiments.
Actuators utilizing micromechanical principles such as piezoelectric drive provide for advantages in biosciences, where precise manipulation of microscopic tools is needed. The piezoelectric principle allows to control the position of a tool attached to a movable element on a piezoelectric drive with small increments, and combining multiple piezoelectric drives makes it possible to manipulate the tool in multiple directions.
Precision in biomedical studies is advantageous as in many experiments it is useful to design experiments with defined locations representing the sample and which thus are of interest to the research. Equally important is the accuracy of the information gathered, as only biologically relevant information is valuable. If the positioning of the instruments is not sufficiently accurate for the experimental setup, the reliability of the experiment suffers.
Furthermore, this should be achieved in a limited space under a microscope stage; the magnifications used to study cells limit the working distance under a microscope and biomedical research may require multiple instruments to create proper environmental control for the experiments, especially if live cells may be used.
The current solutions for manipulating a tool in a microscopic manner do not fulfil these needs completely. Many devices are clumsy to operate and large, and yet they may display significant drift of the tool position over time, or lack desired accuracy. In addition, special objectives may be required to increase the working distance or to provide sufficient angles for the tools to fit under the field of view of the objective.
There is, therefore, a need for a solution that may require less space and can provide for better control in the change of the position of the movable element along the drive stem.